Annales : Graecè ac Latinè by Constantine Manasses(
Book
)9
editions published
in
1616
in
4
languages
and held by
19 WorldCat member
libraries
worldwide

Four Byzantine novels by Theodore Prodromus(
Book
)4
editions published
in
2012
in
English
and held by
18 WorldCat member
libraries
worldwide
Constantinople in the mid-twelfth century saw the composition of the first sustained fictional narratives in the European
world - novels - since late antiquity. Four members of the Byzantine intelligentsia produced for the entertainment of their
colleagues, their aristocratic patrons, and not least themselves, pastiches in verse and prose of the romantic tales of Achilles
Tatius and Heliodorus. These novels are perhaps the most attractive, as well as the most unexpected, literary products of
the Byzantine millennium. More than one of the four novels translated here was well known in Renaissance Europe, but all have
been largely neglected by later generations of readers and scholars as insipid and derivative eroticism. This is regrettable
since they antedate by several decades the works of Chrétien de Troyes, the French father of the European novel. This Byzantine
phase in the history of the genre, though not part of its central development, deserves exploration. Building on recent work
which has begun to rehabilitate these texts, this book marks the first English translation of all four texts in one volume,
placing them and their writers in their literary and historical contexts and opening up their world to all those interested
in the novel and in European medieval literature. LUP gratefully acknowledges the generous support of Dr Costas Kaplanis,
alumnus of King College London, who suggested the idea of the series to Professor Herrin and has underwritten the initial
expenses